Power in Hazelwood

Our group is responsible for understanding the complicated political structure that controls the Hazelwood community. There are a number of key stakeholders and power players that individually access and represent the community, and balance each other out. In the diagram above we organized business, individuals and government agencies accordingly and worked out several pathways of communication.

We learned that within the Greater Hazelwood Community Collaborative (GHCC), are a number of smaller groups that operate independent of one another with different corporate and legislative bodies to enact change on micro levels. While there does not appear to be a singular, obvious line of communication between the community and government, there are several smaller channels that occasionally intersect.

The people of Hazelwood are well represented by the GHCC, Hazelwood Initiative, and Center of Life, however, there are often decisions made beyond the scope of these three groups.

After completing this diagram we still had a few lingering questions:

How much sway do the people of Hazelwood hold? Are they interested in being involved? Do they know how to get involved? And ultimately, who makes decisions on the community’s behalf?